Welcome! An Indian-American's opinions on the world, especially feminism. Warning: I refuse to sugarcoat opinions and ideas, so beware!

Monthly Archives: April 2015

Melissa Weisz is an emerging actress, with a current role in the movie Félix & Meira. The film, which tells the story of a young woman in a traditional Hasidic household who leaves her faith and the strict circle of her community when she falls in love, has strong parallels with Weisz’ own life. She told her story to Laura Barcella.

I never thought I’d be an actress, but not just for the reasons most people think they won’t make it. For most of my life, I lived in a traditional family in a Hasidic Jewish community in Brooklyn, where careers — let alone careers in acting — were rarely discussed. I was fully observant and, when I was 19, I entered into an arranged marriage. Four years later, I left it all behind.

My childhood was loud but happy. I had six sisters and two brothers, so there…

You have manipulated thousands of adolescent teenagers into a twisted ideology of positive body image, and what’s worse is that I don’t think you even know you in are in the wrong. I do believe that you have a good, kind heart- I really do. However, I believe you are grossly misinformed and confused about your own image, and because of that, you should not be a symbol of positive self-image for women of any age.

Your fame is based off of your promotion of the idea that every female is beautiful in her own way- a belief that I have as well. The difference is that I don’t promote the idea that being curvy is necessarily better than being thin. You have degraded petite females to get further on your path to fame, and further skewed the concept of “positive body image.”